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| October 17, 2003 I went to the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Pelleas et Melisande last night at Symphony Hall in Boston. Bernard Haitink, conductor Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano, (Mélisande) Simon Keenlyside, baritone (Pelléas) Nathalie Stutzmann, contralto (Geneviève) Gerald Finley, baritone (Golaud) John Tomlinson, bass-baritone (Arkel) Alfred Walker, bass-baritone (The Doctor; The Shepherd) James Danner, boy soprano (Yniold) Tanglewood Festival Chorus John Oliver, conductor DEBUSSY Pelléas et Mélisande (concert performance with supertitles) All of the singers were very good, and the performance was more interesting that I had expected it to be, but there were some times when my mind wandered. I liked the sound of Simon Keenlyside’s voice the best, but I was surprised that, for me, Gerald Finley as Golaud was the star of the evening. When he was singing, I always found the opera riveting. I don’t know if that is because Maeterlinck and Debussy made Golaud a more interesting character, with the opera reflecting Golaud’s point of view more than that of the other characters, or if it is because of Finely’s ability to create a dramatically convincing character, but I think that it is the latter. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Simon Keenlyside were very effective in their scenes together, especially in Act 4, scene 4. The orchestra played especially well, and Haitink’s conducting helped to highlight the drama. Simon Keenlyside appeared more rested than he did at Carnegie Hall a few months ago. His left hand doesn’t look relaxed to me. I don’t know whether there is something wrong with it, or if he just doesn’t know what to do with his left hand while he is singing. The opera received a concert performance, without any attempt at “semi-staging.” The singers were at the front of the stage on either side of the conductor. When they sang, they stood behind music stands and could look at the score. The men wore white tie. John Tomlinson looks like Boris Godunov with long white hair and a beard. The boy who sang Yniold wore a blue suit. Nathalie Stutzmann looked especially elegant in a black pant suit with a white collar, like a shawl collar but about two inches in width. The pants had wide legs so that the effect was similar to that of a gown. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson is a relatively slim, good-looking woman. She wore a white gown and had long, light brown hair. The chorus did not appear on stage, but sang their brief music from backstage, with the door opened a few inches. The last baseball game of the play-off series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees took place last night. I’d guess that ten percent of the people who had bought tickets to Pelleas stayed home to watch the game on television. There was one intermission, between acts three and four. I estimate that at least a third of the audience did not return after the intermission. The performance ended about 11:20, and I left the hall about 11:30. |
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| Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's recording of Bach cantatas nos. 82 and 199 was released in Great Britain at amazon.co.uk on 20 October 2003. "These accounts of Bach's two cantatas for solo contralto will probably upset the period-instrument purists - Craig Smith's conducting of a modern chamber orchestra owes little to recent notions of baroque practice. But everyone else will be delighted, for this is a rare recording by arguably the greatest mezzosoprano of our age."--from review by Andrew Clements at guardian.co.uk. "Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s new recording of the cantata ["Ich habe genug"], on Nonesuch, is beautiful enough to stop a war, if anyone thought to try," wrote Alex Ross in the November 3, 2003, issue of the New Yorker. --- "[N]ext to having been in Leipzig during the eighteenth century's second quarter, Boston since the 1970s has been the place to gain first-hand, living knowledge of the Bach cantatas," wrote Michael Steinberg for the recording's liner notes. He was referring to the weekly performance of a Bach cantata at Emmanuel Church on Newbury Street in Boston. |
| October 24, 2003 "The Washington Opera has chosen White & Baldacci to create a new image campaign," reports an article at adweek.com. "Previous efforts were created in-house and were limited to direct mail and print ads aimed at existing subscribers and potential operagoers over 50. "The new work will link the powerful themes of traditional opera—lust, greed, ambition, betrayal—to Beltway insiders via the theme 'Welcome to the most powerful lobby in Washington.' The tongue-in-cheek approach will target existing and younger audiences." |
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| October 26, 2003 Harry Connick Jr. and His Big Band bring their "Harry for the Holidays Tour" to the Colonial Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts, on December 20 (8 p.m.) and 21 (3 p.m. and 8 p.m.). Tickets are $37 and $77 and go on sale Monday at 10 a.m. |
| According to the Harvard University Gazette, the Early Music Society will perform The Aethiop or Child of the Desert at the Agassiz Theatre, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Thursday November 6, 2003, through Saturday November 8, at 8.p.m. The Aethiop "is an early American ballad opera by Rayner Taylor, to a play by William Dimond. The story centers around the famed Caliph of Baghdad, Haroun Al-Raschid, mixed identity, and a Greek Christian couple selling contraband liquor in Baghdad." "Tickets are $12 general; $7 for students (2 per ID). Tickets are available through the Harvard Box Office (617) 496-2222." |
| October 29, 2003 Camille Paglia said in an interview for salon.com: "As a writer, I'm inspired not just by other writing but by music and art and lines from movies. I think that's what's missing from a lot of blogs. Most bloggers aren't culture critics but political or media junkies preoccupied with pedestrian minutiae and a sophomoric 'gotcha' mentality. I find it depressing and claustrophobic. The Web is a wide open space -- voices on it should have energy and vision." |
| Classical Music Unbuttoned: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Classical Music, a book by Fred Plotkin, will be released at amazon.co.uk on 1 November 2003. An excerpt, "What not to wear at the opera," appears at guardian.co.uk. |
| October 29, 2003 "Oscar-nominated British actor Jude Law was divorced from Sadie Frost Wednesday after she blamed him for exacerbating her post-natal depression, court papers showed," says a Reuters article. I did not know that one could exacerbate another person's depression. |
| "Jason Priestley, who suffered major injuries in a crash at the Kentucky Speedway last year, hasn't closed the door to a return to racing," says an Associated Press article. Die, Mommie, Die, a movie with Charles Busch, Natasha Lyonne, and Jason Priestley begins a nationwide release in the United States on October 31, 2003. It previously had a limited release on January 20. |
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Jude Law Buy this Photo at AllPosters.com |
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